9 minute read
Q&A with Rochdale's Poet Laureate, Sammy Weaver
Multi award-winning poet Sammy Weaver has been appointed as Rochdale’s first ever Poet Laureate.
Sammy, who lives on a narrowboat along the Rochdale Canal, has been commissioned to capture the spirit of Rochdale in words, raising awareness and helping encourage people to engage with poetry during the town’s year as Greater Manchester Town of Culture.
Between now and March 2026 Sammy will be leading workshops for school children in libraries boroughwide, mentoring Rochdale’s two new, young Poets in Residence - 18-year-old Sasha Mostafa and 25-year-old Alende Amisi - as well as reflecting with her own words during the town’s big year in the Greater Manchester cultural spotlight.
After completing her creative writing master's at Manchester Metropolitan University, Sammy bought a boat and moved from the city to the tranquillity of the Pennine waterways, using the moors and the post-industrial spaces as her inspiration.
Her debut poetry collection 'Angola, America' won the Mslexia Poetry Pamphlet Prize in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award. Sammy has over ten years' experience leading creative writing sessions across the UK. Earlier this year she was made a Yaddo Fellow and was writer in residence at the organisation’s artists’ community in New York.
Sammy's appointment is part of a spectacular line up of festivals, live performances, exhibitions and art during Rochdale’s year as Greater Manchester Town of Culture.
Style's Editor, Ruth, caught up with Sammy to discuss life on the waterways and her exciting year as Poet Laureate...
Ruth: Many people will be intrigued by your life on a narrowboat. Tell us more...
Sammy: I've always been attracted to alternative ways of living. I like peace and quiet and being close to nature. And I like to move - I've never stopped very long in one spot. So it seemed like an affordable alternative to have a go at, rather than renting in the city. But I'd never been on a narrowboat before buying one, which is a bit crazy! It’s been a huge adventure and I think I'm not the most practical person - I fell in the canal yesterday! - so actually, surviving on a narrowboat has made me learn a lot about myself. The canals are this lost world. There's not many rules and regulations around them. There's no driving lessons or driving test or anything! I really love it. It feels almost like part of my identity, really. And there's a lovely community in the canals that support each other and help each other out. I don't think I could live in a house anytime soon.
Does life on the boat spark a lot of ideas for you?
It has inspired a lot of my writing, based on nature or human-nature relationships. I'm often writing poems about canals and the creatures that live on canals.
Last night it was just getting dark and I was watching the bats flying up and down and the ducks pootling along. You get to see a bit of the world, that you don't really see that often and it does feel special. I went to bed last night and I wrote down in my notebook, "below my bed, there are little fish swimming - literally fish swimming a foot away from my head". That's so funny. That never stops being exciting to me. I am, I guess, a big child. I go to bed in my boat and I'm excited.
How did it feel to be named Rochdale’s first ever Poet Laureate?
It was amazing. I couldn't believe it, to be honest. I lived in Littleborough for a few years so I know the area really well. I love the Pennine landscape and Rochdale, and loved the idea of trying to capture that in poetry. I will write a new series of poems inspired by Rochdale, the people, and the landscapes, and they will be published at the end of the year. Although I think I will be performing them before then.
A big aspect of my role for the year is leading workshops in schools and community settings. I've done lots of community work before, but that element of it really drew me in because I think anyone can be a writer if they're given the right support in the right way.
What are you most looking forward to as Poet Laureate?
I'm writing for the people of Rochdale, so they have poems reflected back at them, that capture something of what it is to be from Rochdale, live in Rochdale or find a home there.
This year of culture is very much tied in with the legacy of the Co-op movement in Rochdale and the legacy of working people being given rights, being treated equally and being given a voice - and even the vote, before women could vote in the general election. So that equalizing, empowering legacy of the Co-op movement is very much embedded within this role.
I will be offering schools a menu of themes for the workshops, which will be held in local libraries. One of the those themes is 'Your Voice, Your Power!', so I will be teaching young people that their voice is a power, and they can use it to create change in the world. And they can go wherever they want with that - they can imagine that the change they want is chocolate-covered trees, or they could imagine the ending of all wars. So I'm really excited to weave that legacy of the Co-op movement and empowering all sorts of people across Rochdale to have a go at writing.
You’re going to be working with two young Poets in Residence, Sasha and Alende…
Yes I have my first mentoring session with them soon. So, in that session, we'll figure out what they want for the year, what their dreams are - it's very much led by where they see their writing going. And then I'll give them advice and support, to give them a bit of a helping hand along the way, because getting work out into the world and published is quite a challenging process. You need to be quite stubborn. Every writer will have to see hundreds of rejections over the years and you just carry on. I'll be encouraging them to dream big in terms of their ambitions.
Why is poetry so important?
Poetry has always had a role at big occasions, like weddings and funerals. People will be like, "Oh, let's get someone to read a poem" because it manages to capture the really big, difficult, complex emotions of that event that other language cannot. It gets closer to expressing human experience than ordinary language. That's why I do it.
What has been the highlight of your career so far?
I won the Mslexia Award in 2021 for my debut poetry collection 'Angola America'. Getting those poems published was a huge moment and having my poems out in the world. I did a whole host of readings as a result of that.
At the start of this year, I spent six weeks in a writing residency in New York, which was amazing. It was actually quite challenging because it's quiet hours from 9-4 every day, so you're just sat by yourself doing your writing. I don't think I've ever done that before for such an intense period and soon realised all the distractions of life and also all my comforts weren't there - my dogs and my family. So it was a challenge. It was a self-reflective journey, but it was a real joy. I met some amazing artists, mainly from the States who were all working on different things. It was a great opportunity.
What advice would you give to people that would love to start writing or improve on their poetry?
I guess the scariest thing is the blank page and getting started. We all have a critical voice in our head that might stop us from having a go. I would encourage people to get along to a workshop, whether it's mine or anyone else's. I do think workshops are really helpful, to give you a toolbox of prompts and techniques to get started. I think to begin with, it's about getting words on the page or just words into a voice recording on your phone.
I'm very passionate about taking all the fear away from poetry. People sometimes think poetry is a really scary inaccessible discipline or art form and often say 'they don't get what it means, and it's not for them'. And I think that's generally down to it being taught badly at some point. And actually if it’s taught in a different way that's much more playful and enjoyable, anyone can enjoy poetry.
There’s a Rochdale word called 'cruckle' that means to go over on your ankle. Do you know it? Maybe you could include that in a poem!
No I hadn’t heard of it. It's perfect! It’s just the perfect sound, isn't it? I want to write a poem about clogs, so it will probably end up in the clog poem. Or maybe I'll do a whole poem called Cruckle.
Peregrine Falcon of Rochdale
Talisman of the clock tower, you’re the colour of what made this town: cotton, coal, stacks of rain tumbling sideways.
Our streets are in your wings, the windows of the Seven Sisters ripple in your breast feathers.
The gold of a saree haloes your eyes, the Slope’s buttercups bud and bloom in your talons.
Far above Blackstone Edge, you soar along the warp and weft of the wind.
You contortion into an arrow, plummet down, slipping through the still centre above our heads —
tethered to earth, you descend along the silver ribbon of the Roch towards the town hall’s stained glass, your perch.
Let us stitch into your flight all our stories to ascend beyond the derelict chimneys over the ragged roof of the moor.
Sammy Weaver
